Consists of forty plates, bound without title page and imprint. Each plate depicts two images, numbered and with Latin captions, chiefly of single figures in Italian costumes. Also included are carnival scenes from Venice and a series of officials of the Holy Roman Empire. The plates are bound as follows: officials of the Holy Roman Empire (no. 45-68), an Austrian and a German (no. 45-46), a Roman (no. 17-18), Paduans (no. 3-4, 17-20), a Roman and a Sieniese (no. 29-30), two unnumbered leaves depicting carnival scenes from Venice, Venetian commedia dell'arte costumes, also one from Genua and one from Vicenza (no. 1-12), costumes of the Venetian carnival (no. 31-42), a Maltese and a Neapolitan (no. 33-34, no. 34 with a flap which can be lifted to reveal detail beneath), a Sicilian from Messina (no. 15-16), various Italian women of nobility (no. 19-28), and two carnival scenes (no. 63-64)

Some of the plates correspond with plates comprised in Pietro Bertelli's three volumes work "Diversarv[m] nationvm habitvs ... opera Petri Bertellii ... Apud Alciatum Alcia: et Petrum Bertellium, Patauij, 1594-1596" (c.f. copy described by Lipperheide). Various states of Bertelli's work are mentioned by Brunet. Thieme-Becker records several editions: 1589, 1591, 1592 and 1594. Another possible source of the plates is Alexander de Farbris later edition of Bertelli's work "Diversarum nationum ornatus cum suis iconibus. Padova, 1593" (c.f. Brunet)

Brunet

Brunet

Lipperheide, F. Kat. der Kostümbibliothek

Library's copy has modern bookplate "Ex libris Edmond des Robert" pasted inside the front cover and a small engraving by Abraham Aubry on paste-down leaf at the end

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